Authors often face challenges in bringing their books to market, especially authors who are not well known in the publishing industry. Competition for exposure is fierce, and standing out from other authors typically takes luck and/or a relatively substantial marketing budget. Readers often miss opportunities to read good books because the readers are unaware that the books exist. The selection of books that is known to the reading audience traditionally is limited primarily to books that are written by well-known authors or that are heavily marketed by publishing companies. Accordingly, authors who are not well known or supported by a publishing company are often at a disadvantage for attracting readers to their books.
Moreover, traditional avenues for selling books typically do not engage readers with the content of the books. For instance, a user may walk into a book shop and search for a book on a particular topic or by a particular author. Alternatively, a user may perform a search online (e.g., on Amazon.com®) using keywords to find a book. In accordance with these avenues, the user may be allowed to see excerpts that include content from a book before making a decision whether to purchase the book. However, the user typically has no connection with the content that would serve to engage the user with the content.